An Asbestos Lawyer Watches Veritasium's Asbestos Video

On February 17, 2026, the science channel Veritasium published a video on asbestos, now titled "What does asbestos do to a person?" It runs about 55 minutes and moves from asbestos as "a weavable rock" through the industry's boom, what asbestos does to the body, the doctor who exposed it, the cover-up of asbestosis, where asbestos is found today (including natural asbestos in the desert around Las Vegas), when it was banned, and whether viewers should be worried. Its credits thank researchers including the historian Barry Castleman. By November 2026 it had been watched more than 11 million times. It is a serious piece of popular science, and we recommend watching it.

Between February 23 and 27, 2026, we published four videos in response.

The full watch-through

Play video: Asbestos Lawyer Reacts to Veritasium on Asbestos 43:24

Video · 43:24 Asbestos Lawyer Reacts to Veritasium on Asbestos

Asbestos Lawyer Reacts to Veritasium on Asbestos (February 23, 2026, 43 minutes) is a live watch-through. Our attorney, Justinian Lane, adds context and a few corrections as the video plays. The chapters include a close-up look at asbestos used in the World Trade Center, when Henry Ward Johns began working with asbestos, asbestos cigarette filters, why asbestos-cement was the largest use of the mineral, the 1940s meeting between Unarco and Johns-Manville, the Sumner Simpson papers, asbestos fibers found in the desert near Las Vegas, the difference between asbestiform and non-asbestiform minerals, and the long delay between exposure and disease. He also talks about the members of his own family who died of asbestos-related cancers.

The three short clips

"This is what a LIAR looks like!" Asbestos Lawyer Reacts to Veritasium (February 24, 2026, 28 seconds). A clip from the watch-through about testimony that a head of the Manville Corporation gave to Congress. What Johns-Manville knew, and when, is laid out document by document in our Johns-Manville knowledge chronology.

Let them DROP DEAD. We save MONEY that way! (February 26, 2026, 43 seconds). This clip is about a meeting in 1942 or 1943 at Johns-Manville's New York headquarters. Charles H. Roemer, then a lawyer for the Union Asbestos and Rubber Company (Unarco), described it under oath in 1982 and 1984. In his 1982 affidavit he swore that J-M's lawyer, Vandiver Brown, said it was the company's policy not to tell employees what their X-rays showed, and to let them work until they quit or died of asbestos disease. In his 1984 deposition he testified that when he asked whether they would let men work until they dropped dead, one of the Browns answered, "Yes. We save a lot of money that way." In another deposition, Roemer named Vandiver Brown as the man who said it. These are recollections given about forty years after the meeting. We host both of Roemer's sworn accounts in our Library.

WWII Combat Deaths vs Asbestos Worker Cancer Deaths (February 27, 2026, 41 seconds). This clip compares American combat deaths in World War II with later asbestos cancer deaths among the men and women who built the ships. The attorney's own grandfather, as the clip says, survived the ships only to die of the insulation in them. The clip's description gives 8.6 combat deaths per 1,000 soldiers and 14 asbestos cancer deaths per 1,000 shipyard workers. We checked those numbers.

What the World War II numbers show

By the Department of Veterans Affairs' count, 16,112,566 Americans served in World War II and 291,557 died in battle. That is about 18 battle deaths for every 1,000 who served, not 8.6. We could not find a source for the 8.6 figure.

The shipyard figure is an estimate, not a count. In 2001 The Virginian-Pilot reported that about 14 of every 1,000 wartime shipyard workers died of asbestos-related cancer, and an unknown number more of asbestosis. The article, as reprinted, does not name the source of that estimate, and we have not found the study behind it.

So the fair statement, on the best numbers we have, is the one the paper made: working in an American shipyard during World War II turned out to be almost as deadly as fighting in the war. The difference is that the shipyard deaths came decades later, one diagnosis at a time.